We comment about our daily lives, and events around us, and in the wide world beyond. This is a photo taken of Hanne outside Athens Creek in November 2012, at Penticton, BC.
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Friday, May 4, 2012

Thomas Nuttall 1786-1859

Johann and Vera's Wisteria, photographed in the Rain....

....Growing on their House in Penticton

?Wisteria sinensis. Similar to Laburnum Spp.

A famous Yorkshireman Thomas Nuttall is supposed to have named Wisteria after his friend Mr Charles Jones Wister, or was it in memory of his grandfather John Casper Wister the famous American Horticulturist? The latter lived in a house named Grumblethorpe (in Germantown, Philadelphia) What a wonderfully strange name for a house! But we digress. At any rate, Thomas Nuttall was born in Long Preston near Settle in West Yorkshire, then went to Philadelphia where he became an expert botanist and ornithologist, his name being now attached to various plants and birds. So from Yorkshire we end up in our friends' garden, to look at their lovely Wisteria. We had better warn them however that they had better prune it well, as the largest Wisteria in the world is in California, planted in 1894, and covers one acre and weighs 250 tons. I wonder how they weighed it?

Grumblethorpe in 1960 before its restoration. Photo Thanks to Wikipedia.

It is amazing how one can find connections on the internet! As you know I come from Yorkshire too!